§ 19-11-114.Continuing, exclusive jurisdiction to modify support order

The interstate support act aims for one order and one tribunal with power to change it. That power is called continuing, exclusive jurisdiction. Under subsection (a), a Georgia tribunal that issued a child support order consistent with Georgia law has, and shall exercise, that jurisdiction to modify its order if the order is the controlling order and one of two things is true. Either Georgia is the residence of the obligor, the individual obligee or the child when the request for modification is filed, or — even if none of them lives here — the parties consent in a record or in open court that the Georgia tribunal may keep the case.

Subsection (b) lists two ways Georgia loses that power. First, all the parties who are individuals file consent in a record with the Georgia tribunal that a tribunal of another state may modify the order and take over continuing, exclusive jurisdiction. That other tribunal must have jurisdiction over at least one individual party or sit in the state where the child lives. Second, the Georgia order is not the controlling order — a question Code Section 19-11-116 answers when more than one order exists.

Subsection (c) requires Georgia tribunals to recognize another state’s continuing, exclusive jurisdiction when that state, under this act or a substantially similar law, modifies a Georgia child support order. Subsection (d) lets a Georgia tribunal that lacks jurisdiction to modify serve as an initiating tribunal, asking a tribunal of another state to modify a support order issued in that state. Subsection (e) says a temporary support order issued ex parte, or while a jurisdictional conflict is being resolved, creates no continuing, exclusive jurisdiction.

Residence is measured when the modification request is filed. Georgia’s power to modify another state’s order comes from Code Section 19-11-170, and spousal support follows its own rule in Code Section 19-11-119.1. The section was amended in 2013.